Spark (23 page)

             
This is how it was supposed to be.

Back at home, I sit down at my desk, push the power button on my computer and stare at the screen. A box comes up asking for my password and I type in the only one I’ve ever known—Soliloquy18—the same one that had unlocked my files on Zach’s computer.  My heart aches to remember the two of us together, Zach trying to convince me he knew so much about me, how badly he’d wanted me to trust him, to go along with him on the journey that was meant just for us, the one I’d given up to save my friend.

Given up…

The words just don’t sound right. 

Because I don’t give up.  There will always be a way, no matter what.  Even if time travel didn’t exist, there will always be a way.  Options abound in life, and we have imaginations, so giving up is just plain silly, if you ask me.  On top of everything else, we have something no one can ever take away.  Determination.

Determination means that I’m in this, whatever happens.  Determination is power.  And power is what makes us strong enough to live with consequences, because we tried.  Someday, years from now, I will either be with Zach or I won’t—but no one can say I didn’t try. 

My options are many, and one of them holds the key to my story—the one that will unlock my destiny with Zach.  The beginning is key.  My only problem is that I’m not sure where
we
began. 

Did we begin on a school bus long ago?  In a park, on my 13
^th
birthday?  In a mall four years later?  Or did we begin at some other random point on the timeline?  Where and when was the spark that started this fire?

The first problem is not a new concept for me:  Changing the past will change the future.  That’s a given.  So, no pressure—right?  Been there, done that.  I get it.  The trick is changing it in such a way that it doesn’t erase me, Zach, or Dani from the planet.  Those are the critical elements.  Secondly, it’s possible that my actions could erase the accident on my 13
^th
birthday, thus erasing time travel all together, which means—come what may—I’d never get another chance to make this right.   

There are other scenarios, of course.  Like I said, I’ve been down this road before.  One or all of us could die.  This realization sets like a rock in my stomach.  But something else is setting there, too—something light, full of hope, a dandelion seed drifting on the wind.  It feels right, makes more sense than anything else.  It’s my gut instinct.  And my gut tells me what I believe:  That regardless of whether time travel exists or not, Zach and I were meant to be together.  I’ve already seen the future.  I know what’s there for us.  Some things never change.  Some things get planted in the dirt and come back, year after year.  They grow wild and never stop.  Some things start small like a seed.  A tiny spark. 

Would you believe me if I told you I could feel every single hair on my arms, raising up, just thinking about it?  Like static, all around.  I have the hands-down worst case of goosebumps I’ve ever had, and not just on my arms, but everywhere.  And I am literally freezing to death.  I rub my arms to flatten the bumps, and after a while, I feel warm again.  There is a chatter of thunder that begins slowly,
then within seconds, gets louder, and finally, booms like crazy.  I leap a foot off my chair.  I keep thinking my parents are going to rush upstairs to check on me, but then I remember they aren't home.

I feel a blast of frigid air, like the storm is all of a sudden right there in my room.  I look up expecting to see it, but I know the window is closed, and anyway, I am safe in my chair, sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen.  It is somewhere around 4:30 p.m., and I am already exhausted, which, for me is a rare occasion.  I tap my fingers on the desk, click my inbox.  I must have hit the wrong button because suddenly, the picture just locks up and won’t do anything.  I pick up the mouse; drop it lightly, but nothing.  I am going to have to restart the darn thing.  I am not really in the mood to wait, so I plop down on the edge of my bed instead and sigh, looking around my room. 

The thunder returns, building from a small ripple to a searing crack that is so loud, it feels like it has entered my body.  “Dang,” I say out loud, looking around.  I look back at my computer screen.  The storm rumbles.  The lights flicker and a thunder bolt, the loudest one I’d ever heard, roars.  My ears won't stop ringing.  My computer goes blank, which is as good a reason as any to find something else to do.  Something important.  Something that will make the universe right again.

Tess

             
Fuller Park is where it all began.  Where I began, in a way.  I’m sitting here in my car, the radio low, my phone in hand.  Maybe I will talk myself out of this and text Dani or Cricket to meet me so I can tell them the whole story.  I mean, that’s what this is all about, right?  Telling a story?  A great concept, except that before you can tell it, you have to know how the story ends and how all the pieces fit together.  I may know how the story is supposed to end, but I sure don't know how to fit all the pieces together. 

              It is just starting to rain.  The beads of water on the windshield are glimmering.  I focus my attention on one single bead, staring at it until it gets too heavy and streams aimlessly down.  I wish Zach was here with me.  It wouldn’t matter that he doesn’t know he’s supposed to love me.  I am crying now so hard that everything is a blur—and I have a moment of doubt.  What if I’m not doing the right thing?

              I begin to realize that living without Zach would be better than loving him from afar.  I know what I have to do.

              *

              Then, the oddest thing happens.  I start thinking about Mr. Graves, my seventh grade biology teacher, who stopped right in the middle of class to tell a story about his dog Ripley.  That dog had turned around in perfect circles for a whole minute that morning, he said.  Mr. Graves was way more amused with the story than we were, but I was interested because I had always wanted a dog and besides, I had a major crush on Mr. Graves, so anything he had to say was valuable.  Plus, it was getting ready to rain outside.  He rambled on for like five hours and then he just looked at us, his eyebrow arched up like a mad man, and said, “You know, they say animals behave strangely when a storm is on the way.”  Then, thunder boomed outside and all of a sudden, everyone’s eyes were glued to Mr. Graves.   

“Some believe they can even predict disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis,” he’d added.  Somewhere in the back, Becky Morgan scoffed quite loudly.  I thought she was going to get in trouble, but Mr. Graves was in a good mood.  He liked to tell stories.  And so, he finished it, plopping a piece of chalk on the blackboard tray, smacking the dust from his hands.  “Turns out,” he’d said.  “Ripley had a cocklebur in his tail.”  There were exactly four of us who laughed, out loud, not because it was all that funny, but because the lights had started to flicker and some of us were jumpy by that point.  I know I was.  But it was a good kind of jumpiness, the kind where you are literally on the edge of your seat, ready to get started.  To me, storms were both beautiful and scary, dangerous and intriguing all at the same time.  Then the lightning cracked and the lights went out.

I look down at my arm, the hairs prickling up, wondering if what Mr. Graves had said was true.  Can animals somehow predict a disaster?  Is there something in their wiring that alerts them, some magnetic field that gets a wedgy every time the barometric pressure goes up?  What if people have it, too?

And if we can predict a disaster, can we also predict the beautiful things, like love?  Does our body know love—feel it—before our mind does?  Before we can even say what it is?  Do we just
know
when it’s right, when to follow it?

Following love never fails.  Love is supposed to just happen.  It’s not a science project.  It isn’t contained in a computer chip.  It’s not delivered through some tangled mess of wires attached to someone’s head.  It’s real.  And once you’ve experienced it, you just know.  And nothing will ever change it.

Love:  It transcends time.  It stays. 

And if I give it up, it will come back to me, if it’s meant to be.  I don’t need the chip.  I don’t need the memories that are recorded on the chip to have Zach Webb.  If everything were to be erased—the chip, the memories, the coma, the accident—then the path of my life would take one of two directions:  With or without him.  Without the research and the chip and time travel, I would have no knowledge of what we were
supposed
to have.  It would just happen.  Or not.  And I have to be ok with that.  This is how I know my decision is the right one:  I can’t live the rest of my life wondering if Zach Webb will come back to me, if he will
become
the memories I have of him. 

I have to erase all of it.  It’s the only way.

*

It is getting darker.  I am standing in a field, on the edge of the trees, looking in the direction of the playground.  The wind presses against me, lifts my hair, tosses it in every chaotic direction.  I look up just as a whisper of lightning skips across the sky, black clouds flashing, then gone in an instant.  Everything is still.  Then I hear it.  It’s Zach’s voice, and it’s getting closer.  I see him coming for me.  I know I need to run, but all I want to do is stay there and listen.  Stay there and wait for him.  I know it’s not safe—for anyone.  But there’s something I have to do—something I need to do.

Light flashes.  A crack of thunder. 

The sky lights up again and the world is a huge paper lantern, so pretty yet so thin and fragile at the same time.  I want to stop and just look at it, but the rain stings my face.  Any moment, the strike is going to tear through the sky and drive into the earth.  So I turn.  I run—faster than I’ve ever run in my life—my feet pounding the ground.  I am strong, my legs are powerful.  I am powerful.  I never knew how much.  I run, harder, faster, further away from everything I know.  I slow down, glance back and see that Dani is running toward her parents’ car, to safety.  I see someone else following close behind her, a boy.  A boy , I realize, that will become my Zach.

I run because I’m the only one who can set things right.  I run so the lightning will follow me instead of them.  And I run, because this storm is mine.  It’s been following me around my whole life.  My story begins and ends, all in one bright, shining moment.  My story is a spark.  And a spark has great potential, given the right environment.  And this is how I make my ending:  I have to go back to where it all began.  Where Zach and I began. 

The chip in my ear begins to throb, and then I feel a piercing pain. I know it’s attracting the lightning.  Sudden heat, like an exploding bubble.  I felt the sensation of hitting a wall.  Then, darkness.

Within seconds, I am lying on the ground.  And, as luck would have it, I am breathing.  In no time, I am surrounded by people, my parents scooping me up and carrying me away.  My arms are flailing about.  There is more clamoring and fussing, incoherent rambling.  An ambulance arrives and some men place me on a stretcher.  As we drive away, I look down at the bracelet on my arm and turn the star charm over and over in my fingers. 

Zach

              The next day, I decide to go down to my dad’s lab to start cleaning and packing.  Someone wants to rent the building, so we need to get it cleared out soon.  Maybe going through some old junk will clear my mind and help me forget about Dani for a while.  Ironic how that works.

              When I get there, I am overwhelmed by the mess, the outdated equipment, and the overflowing file cabinets.  The computer is covered with dust and I wonder if it still works.  I hunt around for the cords and find that it’s plugged in and I just need to reconnect the keyboard and mouse.  While it boots up, Dani fills my mind.  I can’t stop seeing her lips, so close to mine, the way her hair felt.  I see us together, walking across campus, hands entwined.  Maybe when we go to college, we’ll spend our nights studying together and watching old sitcoms.  It’s foolish, I know, but maybe if I imagine it long enough, it will come true.

              I am surprised to find that the computer is password protected.  I sit there staring at the dialog box, thinking about typing in random words, but knowing my chances of guessing it is next to nothing.  Where to look?  There has to be a cheat sheet somewhere.  I start rummaging around in the drawers, finding nothing but boxes of paper clips and pens.  Finally, I find a bunch of scratch pads with doodles and notes scribbled on them.  I examine them, trying to extract anything that looks like a password.  I type in a few of them with no luck.  Finally, I find one small yellow piece of paper with the words “Soliloquy 18” written on it.  I shrug and type it in, happy to find that it's the right one.

              Various icons are scattered across the desktop.  When I click on some of them, I find, as expected, a bunch of outdated programs.  Nothing looks all interesting until I get to a folder titled “Research Log.”  When I open it, there is a series of yet more folders—dozens of them.  The one that intrigues me the most is one called “Project Zero.”  Inside are dozens of files; each is dated.  I open the first one.

              The heading reads:             

Project Zero:  File 6-18-2008, Subject Tess Turner

              My mind doesn’t process this immediately, of course.  But when I read it again, my eyes freeze on the name.  Tess Turner.  How or why is Tess Turner’s name in a document on my dad’s old computer, locked up in a dusty storage room?  I look around as if someone might be playing a joke on me.  This makes no sense.  So I read on.

The voice I encounter in the first line of the document immediately draws me in: 

              My first thought:  Am I dead?

              And so I keep reading… I go through every file—there are five of them.  When I finish, I still can’t make sense of what I’ve read.  What does this have to do with Tess Turner?  Is it the same Tess Turner that was in my car just yesterday?  Who wrote this?  And what are they for?